Monthly Archives: November 2012

Disgraced French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn has reached a settlement with Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid and immigrant from Guinea who told police that the former International Monetary Fund chief ambushed her inside his Sofitel room in New York City, dragged her into the bathroom, tried to yank down her panty hose and forced her to perform oral sex.

To end the legal saga, he’ll reportedly pay her $6 million in an out-of-court deal. From New York’s Daily News:

Disgraced French pol Dominique Strauss-Kahn has reached a $6 million settlement with the hotel maid who accused him of rape.

The out-of-court deal marks the end of a sensational legal saga that snuffed the former International Monetary Fund chief’s presidential hopes and sent headlines rippling across the globe.

Lawyers for Strauss-Kahn and the housekeeper, Nafissatou Diallo, reached the agreement in recent days,

Israeli Lt. Sacha Dratwa, who oversees social media for the Israel Defense Forces, recently faced backlash for posing in what he called “Obama style” blackface in a Facebook photo, and ultimately closed his account, saying “I’m not racist.”

…While the conventions of blackface have their roots in the United States in the 1830s and 1840s, its racist caricatures didn’t take long to spread abroad. Of course Americans weren’t the first to wear dark makeup to play black characters—white people were made up to portray darker-skinned people at least as early as the times of Shakespeare’s Othello. But it was only in the mid-19th century that white performers like

Dallas police officer Lt. Regina Smith, like most professionals, has interests outside of her day job. But the rapping she’s done under the name “Lucille Baller” has caused a problem when it comes to her role on the force, according to BlackAmericaWeb.

It’s not just the stark contrast that a musical persona provides with her work overseeing burglary and theft detectives for two patrol investigative units. It’s that Smith, whose police officer husband was killed while on duty three years ago, uses her lyrics to threaten violence against anyone who would dare to “push” her. In one video, she says, “You see this bullet right here … I’ll stick it from their rooter to the tooter and bring it out.”

Not sure exactly what that means — or how it connects (or doesn’t) to her role as a

Nuo Sun filed suit Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court against Millennium Films, claiming an Oct. 27, 2011, stunt at the Ognyanovo Reservoir/Dam near the village of Ognyanovo was recklessly staged by

Tasers are meant to be a less violent alternative for law enforcement, but the number of police Taser lawsuits indicates there’s something else going on.

When compared to a gun, a Taser or stun gun is less dangerous since fewer people die from them. But that doesn’t mean the weapons are harmless. They pack a powerful punch, and the barbs Tasers shoot out implant into your skin.

So what do you do if police have unfairly used a Taser on you? A lawsuit may be warranted, but there are a few things to consider first.

Unlike what “Law and Order” has taught you, when you get booked into jail after an arrest you don’t flash forward to your first hearing seconds later.

It’s also unlikely your lawyer is going to come crashing through the doors once you arrive at the jail, even if you are hiring your own defense attorney rather than relying on a public defender. Even if your attorney was there, it wouldn’t make much difference at that point.

Those first few minutes in jail aren’t the intimidating questioning process you’ve seen on television. Booking is something else entirely.